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Sunday, March 4, 2012

Speculative Fiction Book Reviews

Awakeningsby Edward LazellariA Tor Book, 2011, $24.99, 348 pp
A
band of guardians from another dimension were sent to our world to
find, protect, and serve a lost prince, but in a miserable fluke of the
transport, they all arrived with wiped memories, strangers and orphans
in a strange land. To the best of their abilities they are leading
'ordinary' lives, but their natures warp reality around them to a
certain extent. Callum MacDonnell is a policeman with a family, a man of
integrity, courage, and honor. Seth Raincrest is a trickster who seems
to survive every situation, no matter how disastrous it proves for
others. Daniel is in foster care, and no matter how hard he tries to do
the right thing, violence erupts around him, overwhelming him and
others.

Now a former ally Lelani has followed after to find and
reactivate the guardians, but the whole situation is a mess, complicated
by a rival group who have arrived with memories intact, even if their
powers are somewhat abated by our world's dampening effect on magic.
That's not too much of a problem if you also have brute strength and
cunning on your side, and can coerce cooperation, as disgraced detective
Colby Dretch finds out. Now it's a race to locate the missing prince,
and there are no rules.

This first novel straddles Young Adult
and SF genres like a Colossus, which is not all that surprising, given
Lazellari's background as a writer (and artist!) for Marvel
Entertainment, DC Comics, and Jim Henson Productions. A blend urban
fantasy, romance and realism, this is the first volume of a projected
series that should appeal to a wide range of readers. It isn't often
that a single book reminds me of both Tolkien and Steven King, for the
story has epic resonances, even as the scenes and characterizations are
entirely modern. - Chris Paige
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The
Canadian New Wave of edgy fiction continues with this collection of
short fiction and poetry of Zombie erotica. It is appropriately broken
down into categories of Romance, Revenge, Risk, and Raunch. If you
loooove zombies, or if you want a dementedly fresh (heh!) take on
erotica, this is the book for you. It's a quality paperback with gorily
lurid illustrations throughout by Galen Dara, Miranda Jean, and Robert
Nixon. The mixture of passion, love, lust, and horror in these short
stories - most of them are less than a 1000 words - is astonishingly
arousing. This could be the year's outstanding gift book for fetishers,
either for the holidays or next Valentine's Day, because it will
probably put your partner in a playful mood. - Chris Paige
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Two
story lines converge in this supernatural thriller about Alex, an
unwilling agent for the CIA, and Morgan, a street operative on the other
side of the pond who works for an organization called the Hermetic
Division. He gets called up to deal with things almost as nasty as
himself. The Alex storyline is supernatural with horrific components,
the Morgan parts are the inverse ratio. Very yin-yang.

16 year-old
Alex gets conscripted after she calls a California TV station to
complain about their coverage of a high school massacre - before it
happens. Her call had been dismissed as mere drug-induced looniness by
Patriot-Act funded listeners, but then reality catches up with her
foresight. Alex does not want to become a spirit world snoop, but her
passive-aggressive maneuvers prove futile. Her controller is determined
to use her talents, first to verify torture-induced confessions, then to
infiltrate a cult that is sending shockwaves through the supernatural
ether. Alex's partner, PD, wishes he had the talent she loathes, so
tensions, resentments, and misunderstandings are inevitable.

Morgan
is an all-purpose Shiva, impossible to destroy, but dangerous as hell
to be around - the splash zone can be a problem. Morgan is on the trail
of a murderer who seems to be after immortality - why else the obsession
with 15th century alchemist John Dee and his works?

Levene brings
startling elements together: alchemy, Old Testament conflicts, angels,
demons, shape-changers and tricksters. She is good with details, from
the high-school assassin wearing a George W. Bush mask, to Alex's forays
into a realm where truths are ugly and lies hurt the speaker like
knives, to the emotional undertows that drag characters into dark
waters. The climax takes place in a very ... surprising place, and what
happens there is all kinds of problematic. Honestly, you will want to
see where she takes this in the sequel.

Of all the speculative
genres, horror, because it deals with inner scapes and strong passions,
tends to be the most gripping. Horror tends to ask, indirectly, the
tough questions, questions like What do you want? What will you pay to
get it? and Are you the sort of person who tries to cheat on the Deal?
Every now and then, it can be cathartic to take a long look in that dark
mirror. - Chris Paige
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Book cover found on Amazon.com

Unnatural Issueby Mercedes Lackey
DAW Books, 2011, $25.95, 361 pp

Unnatural
Issue is primarily a retelling of a fairy tale that goes by many names:
Cattikin, Many-Furs, Donkey-Skin, etc. In most versions, a queen dies, a
heart-broken king refuses to marry anyone who is not a match for his
dead queen, and a princess must flee her father's amorous intentions. I
recommend finding Cattikin, for in that variation, the princess is quite
resourceful. First she tries to postpone the marriage into oblivion by
asking for impossible gifts: dresses of sunlight, moonlight, and
starlight, each of which fits into a walnut shell; and a cloak made from
1000 different furs. When delaying tactics do not suffice, she removes
herself from the unhealthy equation and takes a position as kitchen maid
in a neighboring kingdom. There she prepares soup of exquisite
deliciousness, attends dances attired in her magical dresses, and gives
mysterious gifts to the king, hidden in his bowl of soup. The king is
intrigued and eventually figures that the irrational-seeming
discrepancies lead to the discovery of his beloved.

Robin McKinley
previously novelized the motif in Deerskin, but that book is
rough-going, because in her version, the worst is not averted, it
happens.

Mercedes Lackey resets this gem of a story in her
Elemental Masters series, bringing back most of her previous main
characters in cameo roles, as well as introducing new main ones.

Instead
of being a king, Richard Whitestone is a hereditary Earth Master,
landed gentry with a good estate, and a trusted member of the White
Lodge. Tragically, while he is in London tracking a murderer who has
employed dark Earth Magic, his wife dies in childbirth. Enraged and
embittered, Richard Whitestone disowns his baby daughter, Suzanne. He
becomes a complete recluse and brings a blight upon the very estate his
family has protected for generations.

Suzanne is raised by the
servants, learning, not the social airs and graces of a young lady, but
practical, homely skills - and magic. Robin Goodfellow, Puck himself,
straight out of Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill, is her teacher.
It is Suzanne who creates boundaries to contain the blight cast by her
father's wretchedness, and who establishes good will with the local
elementals: the fauns, brownies, and other earth-spirits of Old England.

In
his secret study, Richard turns to the writings of necromancers in
search of a way to bring back his wife from the dead, but he is stymied
by the need for a body to serve as a vessel for her soul. Then, from his
curtained window, he sees 20 year old Suzanne, the very image of her
mother. From that point on, all his energies are bent on making his wish
a reality.
Suzanne discovers her danger in time to escape. She
flees across the moors and finds refuge at Branwell Hall, where Earth
Magic is understood, and welcomed.

Meanwhile, Richard's meddling
with necromancy has caused ripples which alert the White Lodge, and,
somewhat belatedly, Lord Aldridge sends an Elemental Master to
investigate and intervene.
At this point, Lackey performs a bit of
literary necromancy of her own, re-animating one of the great
characters of all times: Lord Peter Whimsey, created by Dorothy L.
Sayers. In Unnatural Issue, he is slightly changed into Lord Peter
Almsley - he is, after all, a gift to any story in which he manifests - a
Master of the Element water, with a flair for infiltration. Almsley
appeared previously in The Gates of Sleep in a supporting role; now he
is the heroine's complement. Alchemically, he has evolved from side-kick
quicksilver to hero's gold.

Lord Peter gets himself installed as
Branwell Hall's new gameskeeper in order to suss out Suzanne - her
magical ability, her history, and whatever she might know of an elusive
necromancer.

Richard Whitestone is not about to give up his plans,
and now he has no compunctions about conjuring and commanding legions
of the dead, and even nastier things like trolls and redcaps. Once he
discovers Suzanne's whereabouts, he declares war on Branwell Hall and
all who dwell therein. And when European unrest erupts into the unholy
mess that becomes "The Great War," Whitestone finds the perfect grounds
to continue his revenge against all who sheltered Suzanne.

One of
the best features of this book is how Lackey portrays aspects of World
War One: the horror of it, the ghastly conditions of the trench warfare,
the stupidity and lies that propagated it, the conditions that nurses
endured and the responsibilities they shouldered, and how those who knew
better could only mitigate the horrors. Suzanne doesn't get to dance in
dresses woven of sunlight, moonlight, and starlight; she dons a nurse's
uniform in Mons behind the Front.

Furthermore, Lackey uses the
language of magic to portray, if not always facts, then certainly
truths. Many of us really do experience the kinds of sensitivities her
magicians employ as they wield magic; this series is one of the rare
validations of the numinous experiences we rarely have words to
describe. (I submit this with some trepidation, having read Lackey's
recent internet posting, reminding her readers forcibly that she is
writing F-I-C-T-I-O-N. I agree with everything she had to say.)

This
ability to sum up, to epitomize, and to transform experiences that
society is vigorously relegating to under the carpet or behind the
curtain is Lackey's greatest talent. In her various writings, she has
shone a clear light on the self-deceptions of survivor guilt and
co-dependency in abusive relationships; she has invented characters who
became paradigm shifts for readers who were consequently able to go from
victim status to survivors and even heroes in their own life stories;
she has incorporated into her stories the grim realities that soldiers
and rescue workers undergo, so that their neighbors can have some
comprehension of their ordeals; she has parsed the big lies that
politicians and their flunkeys love to tell, tearing off the genial mask
to reveal the monstrous greed and cruelty beneath the façade.

Lackey
is, quite simply, a fantastic writer. Consider the range, the contrast,
of the following. In one scene, Suzanne and another girl are
systematically using their Earth Elemental magic in the dairy to protect
the milk, cream, and butter from spoilage. In another, an Earth Mage is
being overwhelmed by animated corpses on a battlefield, and the earth
elementals of the ravaged land, including a unicorn, come to his rescue,
even as they are themselves dying. I wept unabashedly at this scene.

The
author shows a tremendous appreciation for the coexistence of "old
ways" and religious traditions so characteristic of Old England. She
portrays the persistence and validity of the former, and she slips in a
corrected translation of a diabolically (I use that word advisedly)
mis-translated, and infamous abused passage of the Old Testament. This
was very well done, and may even make up for not including Rudyard
Kipling or Dorothy Sayers in her Dedication. Misty may not always
acknowledge her sources, but she does her homework.

Editorial
comment: there are a couple of continuity errors in this first edition.
Early in her escape, Suzanne burns a magical bundle; later on, she is
using it again. And a time anomaly presents one character in the
trenches in December, then shifts forward - to November. These are minor
annoyances in an otherwise enjoyable confection. - Chris Paige
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Book cover found on Amazon.com

Black Wingsby Christina Henry
Ace Books, 2011, $7.99, 295 pp

Black
Wings kicks off a new series in the urban fantasy genre. It has stylish
cover art to catch they eye, with enough subtlety to hold attention.
The writing is lucid, and besides carrying the action narrative, it
swirls and eddies into some lovely side-waters.

Madeline Black
makes a rather incongruous Agent of Death, being short and cute, but she
has an impressive wingspan. She and her fellow agents are responsible
for moving souls on to the Great Beyond, although some souls get lost,
or refuse the guidance, and irrevocably become ghosts. Maddy gets some
guidance of her own from a stone gargoyle; unfortunately, she often
ignores its advice. So a tall, dark, handsome stranger, with a name that
should have sent "Uh-Oh!" alarms ringing in our heroine's head, moves
into her duplex. Hey, she needed the rent! Next a demon comes
terrorizing Chicago, and being one of Death's Agents proves to be no
protection.

Supernatural magic abounds, and there are plenty of
romantic complications tangling our heroine's movements and creating an
emotional cliff-hanger. Just like real life, that.
According to
Carrie Vaughan, it is very important to support the series you like
while they are still new. If the first one sells well, there will be
more. But if readers wait to see if the series succeeds before they
commit, it won't. So if you've ever wondered what happened to
so-and-so's oh so promising series that petered out after only two
installments, now you know: too many readers held off, and that killed
the publisher's commitment. So try to find at least one enjoyable new
author a month and actually buy a book, e-format or paper, to keep them
viable. - Chris Paige
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7th Sigmaby Steven Gould
A Tor Book, 2011, $24.99, 384 pp
It
is quite important to read the quotes at the beginnings of parts and
chapters of 7th Sigma; not only do they explain the title and prepare
the reader for what follows, they make amply clear that this fantastic
book is a science-fiction version of Rudyard Kipling's young adult
novel, Kim. Yes!!!!!

Just as Pat Murphy's There and Back Again was
an SF (and gender-bending) tribute to The Hobbit, and Charles
Sheffield's Billion Dollar Boy was a space-age cover of Captain's
Courageous, Steven Gould has invented a new setting for the coming of
age story of a resourceful boy who encounters a very wise teacher with
whom he travels. Kipling poured all his love for India into his original
book, and his own frustrated desire to be a player in The Great Game
was sublimated into Kim's adventures as a junior field agent for the
British Secret Service.
So, what if Kim were to live in a time of space colonies? - Chris Paige
_______________________________________

Man Plusby Frederik Pohl
An Orb Book, 2011, $16.99, 267 pages
This
republication of a 1976 classic is remarkably timely, concerned as it
is with the affects of overpopulation, dwindling resources, war, and the
dangers of colonizing another planet offset by the imperative to
survive well. A mystery component ends the book with a revelation that
kicks the whole story up an octave, like the final chorus of Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony. Limpidly well-written, it is startlingly on the mark in
its predictions of politics and environmental breakdown.

This is a
man-alone adventure about Roger Torraway, who is torn away from his
good life as a back-up astronaut to undergo radical alteration and then
sent away to Mars to establish a footing so that others, unenhanced, can
follow. He is at once sacrifice and pioneer, crucified in the
laboratory and launched into near-immortality on the red planet.

It
takes a slight mental shift to read SF written before social networking
rewrote our templates, but this one is most rewarding, definitely worth
the adjustment. - Chris Paige
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2 comments:

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About Me

Have published everything from magazines, newspapers and catalogs, to books,
short stories and publishing guides. Have been a graphic designer for over 27 years, a book
publisher and author since 2009, a talk show radio host, a managing editor for a pop culture newspaper, and am a single mother of a 22-year old.